Twitter: One Week, Seven Joys

Technically, it’s only five days since I joined. I’m loving it. Visit my page at http://twitter.com/JoeHage.

You need to join.

For the uninitiated and according to Wikipedia, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

1. I found 25 people to “Follow.” When each of these folks posts a comment, it shows up on my Home Page.

2. 20 people “Follow” me. Six of them (30 percent) are people I’ve never heard of before. They found me though a comment I left on Chris Brogan’s blog. Never heard of him before Monday when The Communicatrix (of Southwest Airline Blog-o-spondent fame) directed me to her de.li.cio.us profile. On it, Chris’ blog about Twitter was favorited hundreds of times so I looked further and began to follow him.

3. The Communicatrix taught me how to make a hyperlink in Twitter. When I complained that the 140-character limitation screwed me up because the URL address was too long, she introduced me to http://tinyurl.com. That one I had heard of. I just didn’t know what it did or how to do it. Now I do.

4. Chris sent an @shelisrael out on his Twitter, which got me following Shel too. Now I’m reading his “Naked Conversations, How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers,” by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. I’m getting new ideas that I can use at Cardiac Science.

5. This morning, Chris posted a comment about Akoha (never heard of it, signed up to see what it is; no review yet). On their page they congratulated OtherInbox (never heard of it), for their presentation at TechCrunch50 (never heard of it).

6. I immediately loved OtherInbox. It’s an email sorting and anti-spamming tool. I posted a blog about it then I posted a Twitter about it. Tshombe Brown, one of my readers clicked through my Twitter, read my blog, and found out how to get an account before I did. Then he Twittered about that and I followed his link to get my own account!

7. Not to mention the entertainment value of the comments my friends are leaving. The New York Times captured it best. They describe this micro-blogging, these tiny little messages as a way to get to know many more facets of the people and businesses of interest to you. They wrote,

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.

Couldn’t have said it better. Loving this. Join me.

And share your Twitter name here so we can all “Follow” you!

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